


Friday Nights

by roquentine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9568310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roquentine/pseuds/roquentine
Summary: Just a wee ficlet about Friday nights at 221B. Post-S4, canon compliant. I'mroquentine19on Tumblr.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a wee ficlet about Friday nights at 221B. Post-S4, canon compliant. I'm [roquentine19](http://roquentine19.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.

Friday nights at 221B are the same as before. Just different.

Before, it had always been a night of takeaway, a scotch or two, and reading in the chairs by the fire (or, occasionally, for Sherlock, the violin at the window). It’s now mostly the same, only the sofa is the preferred location, and in between dinner and scotch, there’s a bath for Rosie, and bedtime.

(Also, the scotch is just for John. Sherlock sticks with tea these days.)

Once Rosie is settled, John will come downstairs and usually find Sherlock in some odd position or another at the far end of the couch; slumped almost horizontal, or hugging his knees, or backwards with his head hanging over the edge and his legs stretched up the wall. John will smile as he enters the sitting room, imagining Rosie in a few years, next to Sherlock with a book and an equally improbable contorted position. He’ll pour his drink, queue up a playlist on the laptop (a mix of their preferences: film scores for him, 80’s French pop for Sherlock), pick up his novel, and settle in at the near end, closest to the stairs. He’ll switch on the baby monitor, then sit properly, one leg crossed over the other, his left hand caged over the rim of his glass on the arm of the sofa, his book in his right.

A bit later, when the light is too low, Sherlock will need to get up to turn on the lamp, and when he settles back down, he’ll do so on his back, his legs flopped over the armrest, the top of his head just barely brushing John’s hip. By this time John will have relaxed his own posture a bit, nestling against the back of the sofa, his legs stretched out on the coffee table in front of him.

Invariably, after some time, Sherlock’s reading material will get flung across the room; John will not even startle. Sherlock will rise indignantly and make his tea, and when he returns to the sofa in a huff, with a different journal, he will lie curled on his side, making John’s thigh a pillow. John’s drink will be finished by this point, so his left hand will hold the book, and his right will thread lightly through Sherlock’s hair, or rub the back of his neck, or rest on his arm.

Just as invariably, Rosie will fuss. Sometimes Sherlock will simply lift his head to give John room to get up, but sometimes, when John has had a particularly long day, Sherlock will lift not only his head but his entire body off the sofa, drop a kiss to the top of John’s head, and go upstairs himself.

(It is only during nostalgic remembrances on the night of Rosie’s graduation from university that they learn that each used to get tears in his eyes, listening over the monitor as the other soothed her; one with off-pitch nursery standards featuring misremembered or just plain made-up lyrics, the other with either a detailed explanation of the latest Met-botched investigation or life advice about how she must cope with being smarter than everyone she’ll ever meet.)

Later, back downstairs, sometime after midnight, John’s eyelids will droop, and he’ll lean his head back and doze until he feels Sherlock stand up. He’ll look up at the man looking back down at him, eyes and face and heart open, a hand extended to take him to bed, and his eyes will fill (maybe for the second time that night) at what they had to go through to get to where they are. And Sherlock will pretend not to notice, and stand silently until John’s hand is in his, and then they will move together through the kitchen and down the hall.

Friday nights at 221B are the same as before.

Only much, much better.


End file.
